Kattuwa-Kurunegala-Kandy, Sri Lanka. WE ARE MISSIONARIES! This opening statement of the Declaration of the 25th General Chapter “Witnesses and Messengers of the Joy of the Gospel” is the same affirmation that the participants of the 2018 ASCLA Meeting about the Brothers make. The event was held from 16 to 21 January in Kattuwa-Kurunegala-Kandy.
In all their reflection, discussion, and interaction during the entire course of the meeting, the participants uphold that they share the same Claretian vocation. “We live in a differentiated reality of priest, brother, deacon or student but received the same apostolic missionary gift. We make the same profession, enjoy the same rights and duties, belong to the same community, share the same mission in accordance to our own gift and to the special role we perform in the Congregation and in the Church. We acknowledge that it is from this vocation as a missionary that the Claretian brother draws his identity, not from his ministries and from his talents and capacities or the lack thereof. We affirm that what gives meaning to the vocation and consecration of a brother is not a question of task but of identity.” They also reiterated the message to the Congregation of the participants of the “Vocation and Mission of the Missionary Brother Today” in Vic in April 2014 that “our Congregation is not divided into sectors but a result of correlation.”
They recognize that there are many challenges and difficulties in the formation and in the promotion of the vocation to brotherhood in the Asian countries that comprise ASCLA since there is a general bias towards priesthood and priestly formation especially among the families and the people who are close to the brothers or to those who want to become brothers. “Our formation programs are not free of this bias because these programs have been patterned mostly from the traditional seminary formation of the different regions where our formation houses are.On one hand, we affirm that our formation has always been instilled with Claretian, missionary, religious and apostolic spirituality and charism.
To deepen our knowledge, appreciation and understanding of the different forms of life in our Congregation and to avoid any form of split, we believe that some changes are necessary so that our formation programs become more responsive to the diverse forms of Claretian life and the individual charisms that arise from these differing forms of life that our Congregation is gifted with. Hence, we present several proposals to the major superiors of the different organisms in ASCLA.” – from the Document Proposal produced after the meeting.
Participants:
Dependent Delegation of Sri Lanka
Fr. Royestan J. Peiris Pulle CMF,
Br. Rojes Alve CMF
Philippine Province
Fr. Anthony Carreon CMF,
Br. Joseph Roy Villarin CMF
East Asia Independent Delegation
Br. Desiderio Ching CMF
Independent Delegation of Korea
Fr. Peter Lee CMF
Independent Delegation of Indonesia-Timor Leste
Fr. Nikolaus Ilan CMF,
Br. Paulinus Besin Manek CMF,
Br. Hieronimus Martyadin Ngampu CMF,
Br. Edvan Andreas Ruu CMF,
Br. Francisco da Costa CMF
